Expand horizons
I am sick of hearing professors and farm leaders spelling out doom and gloom for the agriculture industry.
These people should be promoting research into alternative markets such as a sustainable energy supply. We have spent too much time dwelling over the obsolete family farm and the mindset that farms only supply food. In reality, farms are harvesting energy from the sun in the form of organic material.
The price of produce grown from the ground should be pegged to the price of oil the same way that natural gas is. We should have been initiating serious research into this concept many years ago, so let’s get started.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
We are starting to look at ethanol and biodiesel now and that is commendable, but really we should be producing it in mass quantities right now and looking for other markets. We have let the rest of the world destabilize oil and gas production, thus raising the prices to exorbitant values due to increased risk of supply.
We need our governments to support sustainable energy through research and tax incentives. I can visualize oilseed crushing, ethanol production, biodiesel production and refineries integrated to produce fuels….
Close by there would be abattoirs and meat processing plants along with facilities to produce burnable fuels from the offal and manure from the animal production and processing….
So, let’s not spend our time looking for respectable ways for the industry to commit suicide.
Rather, let’s expand our horizons and develop new markets for our produce and strengthen our country in the process.
– Jim Rogers,
Edgeley, Sask.
Live your creed
On the floor of the House of Commons and throughout the election campaign, Stephen Harper spoke endlessly in favour of accountability, ethical conduct in government, an elected Senate and an end to cronyism. He obviously was pretending that these items were an important part of his creed.
Let me remind the prime minister that the best of all the leaders are the ones who live their creed. Harper’s patronage appointment of an unelected Montreal businessman to the Senate to act as his public works minister and his recruiting of a recently elected Liberal, David Emerson, to serve as minister of international trade make a mockery of all his superficial promises.
Neither the prime minister nor Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar MP, Carol Skelton, who now opposes her own private member’s motion in the last Parliament that would require an MP who crossed the floor to run in a byelection in the MP’s riding, demonstrate ethical behaviour. I agree with Murray Mandryk when he labels the actions of the likes of Emerson, Harper and Skelton as “unadulterated hypocrisy.”
– Helen Baker,
Saskatoon, Sask.
Organic ballot
During the annual general meeting of the membership of Canadian Organic Certification Co-operative, numerous concerns were raised regarding the hastily procured balloting process to implement a Saskatchewan Organic Commission for the redirection and administration of organic check-off funds.
Throughout the discussion, the lack of a public consultation and debate to consider various viewpoints enabling the electorate to reach a valid conclusion was highlighted.
The 2005 Saskatchewan Pulse Growers report suggests the pulse checkoff results in an annual $3,113,474 made available for three main categories of research: agronomic; breeding; and processing; of which only three percent is not directly benefiting organic production. This pales in comparison to the paltry amount projected to be collected under an exclusive organic checkoff.
Similar projections were noted regarding the Western Grains Research Foundation allocations to organic production.
Producers also expressed concerns regarding continued efforts by “so-called industry leaders” to marginalize producers of certified organic product by segregating them into a “we versus them” enclave. The meeting voted unanimously to reject the notion of a Saskatchewan Organic Commission and is asking Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food to deem the balloting process null and void.
It is suggested that more important than a check-off campaign is working toward developing a unified organic body that gains credibility politically with provincial and federal governments, to leverage more research and support for sustainable agriculture.
– William Rosher,
Secretary, Canadian Organic Certification Co-operative,
Kindersley, Sask.
Micro-organisms
Re: “Fungi has rosy future on the farm” (WP, Jan. 5.) I read this article and feel I must respond. I have been using a product for three years, sold as a soil biostimulant, and it has shown me to have fungal tendencies in the field, as this article is saying.
I showed a sad yield (compared) to the check (variety) and grade quality was reduced in durum. Some other crops showed some good things, so far. There is a need to monitor usage, like he says. Fungi is not the end-all to the soil health problem. All micro-organisms play a role. …
I had the privileged opportunity to spend six days under the instruction of soil microbiologist Dr. Elaine Ingham of the soil food web in Vulcan, Alta. Tremendous learning curve.
The life in our soil is one of the last few things as farmers we have control over. Conventional farms use too much chemicals and fertilizers, organic farms do too much tillage and they both harm the life in the soil. But both styles of farming can look to the life in their soil, learn how to preserve life, and grow it up. …
– Glenn Bodie,
Mossbank, Sask.
Just platitudes
Re: your editorial of Feb. 16, “Science must rule over GM politics.” I find that I must challenge some of the issues raised in your editorial.
You present the ideas of Europeans being fearful of genetically modified organisms as being “unwarranted” (and) that they have been “unable to provide scientific proof that the products presented for approval are dangerous.” I find this somewhat bizarre. Why should apprehension at the introduction of a new way of thinking about life and our relationship to it be a matter of proving it to be unsafe?
Should not the onus of proof be that it is safe?
Should not the promoters of such technology first understand the inner workings of all the parts involved and their relationship to each other and the world around before they can accurately say this is safe?
We are talking about living organisms, not a lump of ferrous oxide waiting to be turned into a sheet of steel, not a silicon switch waiting to be told on or off.
Before it can be said of an action “this is safe,” we, the observers, must first understand all the parameters of the event, all the spin-off reactions to the event. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction….
You also noted that “no one wants to force genetically modified food down the throats of Europeans.” Choice through the marketplace is our final safeguard. I wish it were so.
In Canada, we do not have that option, as we have settled for volunteer label of GM products. I have yet to see one package of food that anywhere on its label says anything about “may contain GMO product.”
This makes a mockery of choice when you consider that somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of all food found on the grocery shelf contains GM product.
It’s been 10 years since the first GM seeds were licensed and sold for human consumption. At that time, there was a push to have these seeds segregated from conventional seeds, but the expense we were told was not necessary and it would cost too much.
Anyone that knows anything about systems knows that the time to start such a program of segregation is in the initial stages of the program, not when it has become ubiquitous within the existing system. There’s no going back.
And I’m afraid. I’m afraid that the words “it’s safe” are just platitudes that treating life as product to be bought and sold to be controlled is a self-serving goal.
– Wayne James,
Beausejour, Man.
Board is OK
The Western (Canadian) Wheat Growers (Association) lost no time in proclaiming in many of the farm papers that the new Conservative government would soon be making the Canadian Wheat Board a dual market.
We know Mr. Harper stated that before the election but election promises don’t always happen. Let us remember it was unanimously passed in the last Parliament to retain supply management, and orderly marketing is much the same thing.
Also the new government will have a pretty frail minority and will have to be careful how it proceeds. I’m sure there’s many other issues of more importance then dismantling the CWB.
The wheat growers have been clamouring for years against the CWB, which is as far as I’ve seen is about all they ever do. I believe our past government thinks they have done a reasonably good job and make the farmers extra money. The CWB has been in existence most of my farming years and now with all the changes and having farmer directors, it’s better than ever.
I would say forget a dual market. It just wouldn’t work. To say Mr. Harper should move quickly on the issue as most of the farmers voted Conservative doesn’t mean they were against the board. I would estimate 75 percent of the farmers want it left as is. However, the farmers and the elected directors should make any change, not the government.
Farmers are their own worst enemies. They don’t seem to work together and find it hard to agree on anything. All grain prices are much too low compared to the cost of production.
I know many farmers are quite frustrated at present and hope a solution can be found. When grain prices are low, it’s easy to lay blame somewhere but if prices were what they should be, nobody would give a hoot about getting rid of the board.
I read in the paper that the canola growers were asking the wheat board to market their canola. That should say something to opponents of the board.
– Jack Wheeler,
Treherne, Man.
Money in farming
Lots of money in grain farming? If one reads any of the weekly farm newspapers, it would be confusing to see why grain producers are not rolling in money. Headlines in one edition (WP, Feb. 9) read “Potash Corp.’s fourth quarter profit rises,” “ADM’s share price hits record high,” and “Grain hauling contributes to railways’ record income.”
These headlines would seem to imply the grain industry is very robust.
If one couples the headlines with the fact that several grain company executives earn compensation packages well in excess of a $1 million per year, other executive management people have received bonuses and the fact that some grain company directors have received pay increases, it would be difficult for any intelligent person to understand why a federal government payment to farmers is needed. It would seem the industry has lots of money for its participants.
There is lots of money in agriculture. The problem is that little is left for the farmer after the grain, fertilizer, transportation, herbicide and fuel companies take their share. And it will always be this way until farmers obtain some market power.
As producers, we can chase the dreams of diversification, niche markets and efficiency returns forever, without any substantive results. Not until we learn to work collectively will we ever have any money that sticks to our hands.
For the entrepreneur farmers who feel we must be independent to succeed, they need to ask themselves why many input suppliers to agriculture such as fertilizer, agricultural manufacturing and chemical companies continue to consolidate and form partnerships. By working collectively have they learned something that farmers are unable to grasp: profit?
– Kyle Korneychuk,
Pelly, Sask.
Keep the board
In reply to Craig Docksteader’s article “History shows dual market works” (WP, Feb. 2), this is possible only in some cases. Many years ago I had the privilege of looking over the secretary’s minutes of a co-operative grain pool of the 1920s. Apparently the members had the right to opt in or out as in Craig’s terms of freedom of choice.
When prices were high on the open market, the farmers sold on the open market, capturing the top price sales. This negated the pool’s ability to capture the top prices to allow them to properly pool prices. When prices dropped on the open market, farmers then sold on the pool system expecting a payment. However, under these conditions when prices stayed low, the pool went into a deficit and went broke in the early 1930s.
As Craig says, the five-year contract may have provided stability (but) this five-year contract nullifies the freedom to choose he so eloquently speaks about….
(This) is not about freedom of choice. It’s about getting rid of the wheat board and its monopoly selling power in farmers’ favour. It is about freedom to exploit the farmer….
If freedom is the issue, where is my freedom to sell canola on the wheat board if I wished to do so? The corporations don’t like it when farmers have monopolistic selling power on their side. It crimps their style…
The wheat board is a modern, forward thinking, advanced marketing system farmers couldn’t even dream of having in the past. To get rid of it would be a sad travesty for farmers, as it would take us backward to a dark time in the past where serfdom existed. …
Who are the real Luddites here? Certainly not those who advocate keeping the wheat board as is, as a single desk seller of farmers’ grain….
– R. E. Kennedy,
Simpson, Sask.
Fruit & fibre
In response to the article on page 12 of the Western Producer, Feb. 2 re: buying B.C. fruit.
I always look for B.C. fruit in our local stores but find very little. Is it all U.S. grown due to the North American Free Trade Agreement? Or is there another reason such as the United States selling for a lower price?
Canadians are shooting themselves in the foot by not buying Canadian grown produce. I’ve lived in the Okanagan and in Creston, B.C., both areas known for growing delicious fruit, but we don’t see it in Alberta stores except for a very brief time in the fall.
Also a comment on food prices from page 46, Dec. 29 issue. I would like to see this type of pricing on the labels of the food we buy in place of the French labelling, which is useless anywhere except Quebec.
Maybe if the urban people could see how little of the retail price goes to the producer, they would realize how farmers are struggling to stay alive on the farm.
Of the four products broken down in the article we only buy one, pork, and this from a local organic farmer.
I make all our bread, do not buy any ready-to-eat cereal or beer. I buy rolled grain – wheat, oats, rye, barley, kamut and triticale and mix it together for porridge. (There are) too many additives in cereals …. I also buy other grains and grind them for other types of porridge. I use a regular coffee grinder.
I must compliment the writers of the well thought out letters in the Feb. 2 Western Producer. A big salute to all stay-at-home parents and farmers who raise as much of their own food as possible.
– Elaine Sloan,
Morinville, Alta.
CWB & Holm fan
Re: Dual desk is code for disaster (WP, Feb. 9.)
As a western Canadian farmer. I would like to congratulate with a big thank you to Wendy Holm for writing her opinion on the Canadian Wheat Board.
I urge every western Canadian farmer to read her letter and even keep this writing in their filing cabinet and read it every once in a while to refresh their minds. Thank you, Wendy.
– Daniel Ruest,
Admiral, Sask.
Fond memories?
In 2003, Saskatchewan Investment, a crown corporation, invested $11.5 million of our tax dollars in Hypor, a large multinational swine genetics corporation headquartered in Regina.
Now, Saskatchewan Investment has sold its Hypor shares to an even larger multinational, Nutreco, and in a recent government press release, Hypor president Dave Libertini is quoted as saying, “I think we can look back fondly to the role Investment Saskatchewan played in Hypor’s development.”
The Saskatchewan government continues to finance and support the hog industry … and Mr. Libertini’s comment caused me to ponder the “fond memories” of others involved in this scenario.
I thought of the mother whose kids suffer from chronic asthma, sore throats, burning eyes, depression, irritability and migraine headaches caused by the putrid and toxic emissions from the neighbouring pig factory, and of her fond memories.
I envisaged the fond memories of another woman, dashing from her home to her vehicle to go to work but failing to get out of her yard before the stench and toxic fumes from the nearby pig factory caused her to bring up her breakfast again.
And, I considered a young Saskatchewan man who wants to start farming but is afraid to buy the land they’ve found. Currently, there is one pig factory in operation nearby and another about to be built. He fears the impact these operations will have on his family’s life: their air, their well water, and their health. What would their fond memories hold?
So, while Mr. Libertini looks back fondly on the use of our tax money, we experience the injustice and fear of the continuing, nay, growing threat to our health and the natural world around us.
Somehow we will just have to learn to enjoy the way the government invests our money.
– Elaine Hughes,
Archerwill, Sask.
Kids & animals
Is Dan Murphy’s article, “Destroying factory farm fallacy,” WP, Feb. 16, supposed to be a joke?
He equates keeping children in the house to intensively confined animals on factory farms. Having kids inside, “under supervision,” is hardly equivalent to keeping sows crated their entire productive lives, unable to even turn around, or laying hens in battery cages where they cannot spread a wing, let alone nest, perch or dust bathe.
Do his kids never get to move around? Must they stand or lie in one spot for months, eating, sleeping and defecating there?
Please, someone call children’s aid immediately.
– Stephanie Brown,
Canadian Coalition
for Farm Animals,
Toronto, Ont.
Factory farming
Re: Destroying factory farm fallacy, WP, Feb.16.
Dan Murphy’s puzzling, convoluted article about the concept of factory farming fails to address the issue in any meaningful way, apart from his comments about the need to raise livestock efficiently and profitably under more natural systems. Blaming “concerted propagandizing” for the term factory farming completely dismisses reality.
Under Canadian law, all animals, not just farm animals, are considered to be property. However, no other situation epitomizes this more vividly than the modern farm.
Take, for instance, egg production. It begins with hundreds of thousands of eggs being hatched in a hatchery.
Uniformed workers stand at a conveyer belt from which male chicks are thrown down a chute into a macerator, due to their complete lack of economic value. This isn’t a factory? …
I can’t imagine a farmer today who would be obtuse enough to deny that the “overwhelming metric” of any farm is efficiency.
Efficiency is why animals are mutilated, over-crowded, denied any and all natural behaviours; crammed into huge unnatural social groups or singled out into solitary confinement; made to consume unnatural feed laced with drugs and subjected to the most egregious suffering imaginable during both transport and slaughter.
Efficiency is the reason that farmers are forced into an increasingly untenable economic corner, making uncomfortable and increasingly immoral decisions in order to simply make ends meet.
Modern “factory farming” is a disaster in every way, compromising not only animal and human welfare, but the very ethical principles upon which a compassionate society should be built.
Until industry emerges from its state of denial and institutes meaningful change instead of flailing about looking for fatuous metaphors and trying to lay the blame elsewhere, the most descriptive terms will continue to stick.
– Debra Probert,
Executive Director,
Vancouver Humane Society,
Vancouver, B.C.
Tory views
Pardon me if I write like a cynic. I have been under the impression that a majority of Canadians, and presumed that included Saskatchewan, were not in favour of deeper integration with or by the United States.
So it was surprising and disappointing, when voters here elected 13 new Conservative MPs in 14 constituencies. Some of these have evolved from the old Reform/Alliance parties and have links to an American organization named the Coalition for National Policy….
The CNP is described as a “secretive group that unites right wing billionaires with scores of conservative Christian activists and politicians.” Rev. Jerry Falwell speculates that “literally billions of dollars have been utilized for the CNP that would otherwise have not been available.”
The CNP sponsors three meetings annually. These are not open to the public or the media.
No one gets to speak at CNP meetings, unless that person is approved by the entire CNP executive. Some previous speakers included Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Alberta minister of economic development Mark Norris, to discuss Alberta’s tar sands.
Across Canada about 12 recently elected new Conservatives have links to the CNP in various connections.
It would take too much space to list all the names…
– Leo Kurtenbach,
Cudworth, Sask.
Dual market
Your ideology may be that a dual market never was, could never work or should never be considered. However, written history does not confirm this.
The Wheat Board Act of 1935 was set up to provide producers with a dual market.
The 1935 dual market ended Sept. 27, 1943, due to the war and the monopoly was created as an “act of war” and a price control.
On Sept. 23, 1943, the Regina Leader Post headline read “Wheat price increase poses urgent problem.” On this date the open market price for No. 1 wheat was $1.23 per bushel. The CWB price was 90 cents.
Between April and September of 1943, the CWB received less than 500,000 bu. of wheat out of a total delivery of 125 million bu.
The government found itself in a very difficult situation with escalating prices and decided to shut down the trade and impose the CWB monopoly.
The monopoly carried on and at the end of the war in 1946 the CWB monopoly entered into a four-year sweetheart wheat agreement with the government of Great Britain.
I recall my elders in the mid and late 1940s saying “there will always be an England as long as Canada can afford it.”
– Bill Rees,
Stockholm, Sask.
CAFTA query
At the recent World Trade Organization meeting in Hong Kong, a Canadian group operating under the title of Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance forwarded this suggestion: that Canada should reduce its domestic support to farmers.
Domestic support includes programs like crop insurance, cash advances, Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization and other government farm assistance programs.
This is an anti-farmer message, a gross betrayal of grain producers. I question: do their farmer members know what their leaders are doing?
Who are the members of CAFTA? This should prove very interesting: the Western (Canadian) Wheat Growers Association, Canola Growers, Barley Growers Association, Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, Agricore United and a few others.
It is very revealing to remember that in the past, these same organizations, some under a different name, but nevertheless the same people, lobbied for the removal of the Crow Rate, the two price system for wheat, the Western Grain Stabilization Program and Gross Revenue Insurance Plan.
They have betrayed their fellow farmers in the past and are still doing it, presently targeting the Canadian Wheat Board, which is supported by a majority of prairie grain producers. It just doesn’t make sense, it defies all logic. With friends like these, who needs enemies?
– George E. Hickie,
Waldron, Sask.
